‘Maestro’ movie review: Sincere and ambitious, but is that enough?
The Hindu
Nithiin scores in the ‘Andhadhun’ Telugu remake, which leaves no room for ambiguity in the end
Director Merlapaka Gandhi and actor Nithiin, whose home production has backed Maestro, deserve a pat on the back for trying to recreate writer-director Sriram Raghavan’s brilliant black comedy Andhadhun, in Telugu. If you’ve seen the original, you might agree that it takes guts to even attempt to match that vision.
One could argue that when the original is available to view digitally, do we need a remake that takes a direct-to-digital route (Disney+ Hotstar)? But for the business constraints during the pandemic, Maestro would have been a theatrical release, taking the story to newer pockets of Telugu film viewers. That’s a different issue altogether.
As it stands, Maestro is faithful to its source material, tweaking it only mildly. Yet, it falls short. Remember the macabre humour that unfolds as the pianist, supposedly blind, is privy to events that unfold in a yesteryear actor’s house after a murder? A lot depended on how the sequence was choreographed, with the inimitable Tabu playing a big part, helped by Ayushmann Khurrana and Manav Vij. The sequence in Maestro follows a similar pattern but the effect is far from the same.